Question:  Dear Greg,

            I am an African from Nigeria.  Sometimes I feel that God has been unfair to Blacks.  I know the Bible sees it otherwise.  As a Roman Catholic I believe in Marian apparitions.  One thing she said is that AIDS is a punishment for man’s practice of homosexuality.  I fully agree with the Holy Virgin and Mother of God.  My question is: why is it that AIDS appears to kill people only in the developing and poorest countries of the world such as Zaire, South Africa, etc.?  I live in Europe (Germany to be specific) and here homosexuality and lesbianism are accepted forms of life.  It is only in the western world that homosexuality is not only practiced but celebrated—remember the annual gay parade?  Are Black people chosen by God to suffer for the sins of the entire world community?  Homosexuality is practiced in Africa but not celebrated.  Homosexuals in Africa do not go about recruiting new members like in Europe and the USA.

            Kevin

Answer:  Dear Kevin,

            I appreciate that you feel that God has been unfair to Blacks and I also appreciate that you know that the Bible says otherwise.  Without belaboring the issue, the old covenant was, for many reasons, a covenant with the people of God who were of one race/tribe/people/group.  However, the New Testament makes it clear that we are all one in Christ and that in him there is neither “Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female…” (Galatians 3:28).

            Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 that there was a time when the vast majority of us were “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world…” (Ephesians 2:12).  Peter received a vision from God of a large sheet containing animals that were impure/unclean for an observant Jew to eat.  In the vision God told Peter to eat of these animals—then Peter discovered that the vision was not primarily about his diet, but that “God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean” (Acts 10:28).

            Based upon this and other solid biblical evidence, God (who is above all known to us as a God of love) does not show favorites to any human, based upon any human attribute.  Therefore, the slavery and inhuman treatment of Blacks, the pogroms and Holocaust of the Jews, the “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnia, Serbia, etc., the killing fields of Cambodia, the horrors of Rwanda, the AIDS plague of Africa—none of these are directly caused by God, as punishment, etc.

            I am not Catholic and I most emphatically do not believe with Maryology or any apparitions of Mary.  I believe such beliefs have no place in Christianity, but rather are a syncretism with animism, paganism and even witchcraft.

            Beyond that, you note that an apparition of Mary is reputed to have given unbiblical advice.  Now we really have a problem.  Not only are apparitions of Mary questionable, but the advice given/received does not accord with the Bible.  How is it in conflict?  The Bible does not instruct us that God punishes people for specific sins over and above the kind of punishment people bring on themselves for sin.

            Here in the U.S.A. there were some Christians who announced, following September 11, 2001, that God had punished the U.S. because we were liberal and lenient toward homosexuals, because we allowed abortion, because we were immoral in other ways.  Problem?  Nowhere in the Bible is anyone given the authority to speak for God when a disaster occurs, informing others that God has given us a message he wants us to give to them.  Jesus spoke of the disaster that happened when 18 people were killed by a Tower that collapsed.  He asked, “Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:4-5).

            So, Jesus’ advice to us about calamities and disasters?  He makes no comment about the comparative wickedness of the people who suffer or die.  Nothing about whether the people are out of God’s favor because they are thieves, liars, homosexuals or murderers.  No comment about whether one sin is worse than another.  Simply this: we all will perish and die, one way or another, unless we repent and accept the fact that Jesus Christ did something on the cross for us that we can never do for ourselves.

            I hope this helps, Kevin.  May God bless you!

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht